Archive for July, 2012

I would like to get your feedback on this question. There is plenty of Fear to go around. Every media outlet is full of it. We also learned some Fears along the way: fear of ridicule, fear of failure, etc. How do we help someone deal with their Fears? Most of us just have to learn that the boogey man isn’t under the bed. The rest of it is to first identify the problem, give it a name and face it. Pretty simple to write it out, not so simple to do. I haven’t found and “easy” formula. So if you have please let me know.

Same with Self-Limiting Beliefs. It’s almost always something learned. We’ve been told we can’t do this or that. And believed it! For a long time! I had a baseball coach tell me I didn’t have any self-confidence. I was 10 or 11, heck I didn’t even know what he meant! It has stuck with me though. Only as a reminder how wrong those “others” can be. The ones we tend to listen to and trust. Maybe, just maybe they were wrong.

Let me know your thoughts on how to ‘attack’ these two situations.

And once again thank you for the book purchases. I am overwhelmed at how the sales are going.

(I borrowed this from a fellow coach. It’s good.)Do you struggle with making deadlines? Do you feel burnt out and tired all the time? Do you put tasks off? These are some signs of being unmotivated. Below are four key ways to help you motivate yourself. When someone is motivated they are more on top of their priorities and feel good about themselves and their work. Try these motivation tips to better yourself and your work.

1) Make time psychology work for you. If you have ever taken a time management course before, you have learned how to pack more into less. But have you ever noticed how difficult it is to leave a project or job incomplete? You can play on this psychology of completion by writing out a things to do list before you go home at the end of the work day. Chances are if you don’t know exactly where to pick up where you left off, you’ll have to start over. Tonight, before you leave the office lay out 5 calls you need to make tomorrow morning. Or go home right in the middle of filling out a prospect contact sheet.

2) Give yourself daily and hourly goals. Very few of us have the ability to stay disciplined all the time. Yet studies have shown that a big difference between those who succeed and those who fail is constant and concentrated activity. Big hitters report such behaviors as not taking lunch until they make a pre-set number of phone calls. They don’t allow themselves to play golf until they sell a certain number of units. Sure they make sacrifices. But in the meantime they also make sales. Most who practice this method of self denial say that when they do earn a lunch or a golf game, the taste is very sweet when linked to successfully accomplished activity.

3) Make selling a game. When you take your work too seriously, it becomes drudgery instead of enjoyment. Most top producers mention that their income takes a back seat to how much fun they have on the job. Interestingly, many poor producers look at their paycheck as being the biggest motivator. The problem is that your sales production will fluctuate. You may go from a “Who’s Who” to a “Who He” in the space of a year. For example, “play” more often with your best customers. Send out birthday cards to prospects or customers you care about. See how many phone calls you can make in an hour or a day without caring particularly about the result.

4) Burnt out is a key factor in maintaining motivation. A great way to avoid the symptoms of burnt out is to link rewards to activity instead of success. One way to kill motivation is to increase your frustration and isolation. You have probably at one time already done this by withdrawing from the people in your life you love. But a great way to create motivation is to give yourself a reinforcement gift that comes as a result of superior effort. Effort always results in success if it is maintained.

“Just as the butterfly leaves the cacoon transformed, so too we are leaving our past more magnificent for having experienced it.” Great quote. Too often I find people who are stalled on something from their past. A FEAR or a self-imposed limitation (“I’m too___,” “I can’t__”). This is where hanging on to the past is hanging them.

Great memories of our past and understanding its contribution in creating our today is essential. We just can’t stay stuck there. If we do, then nothing new develops for us. Our lives don’t advance. So, how do we deal with old luggage? It takes making a decision to Change, setting Goals, taking Action. Easier said than done sometimes? Yep. If you can’t work through it by yourself, then find a mentor, someone to hold you accountable. Start now.

You found someone interested in your service/product. You talk to them. You ask questions. They seem interested. Then, bam, they are off the line because of some objection you didn’t see coming. What do you do? My suggestion is that when you’ve got someone in a conversation that looks like it should lead to a close of the sale that you “position” them up front. What? Positioning is where the objections are met. Where the ‘yeah but…’ is answered. So, develop a statement that tells them that the two of you will talk, answer questions, learn about each other. Then if it looks like working together will be beneficial to them, you will ask them for their business. AND, you will expect an answer at that time…today, now. Then say, “Is it alright if we proceed in that manner.” You will get all of your objections now. Before you spend a lot of time with someone who really isn’t going to buy. You won’t get objections on the back end. Try it.

These three seem to be constantly on my radar. More education breeds a better attitude. More knowledge helps us see more possibilities. More possibilities means a better attitude. A very key ingredient to Success is Communication. It is critical to leadership as well. It can take 7 years to build a business to a place where it works for you. In that time we must recruit people who are good at getting customers for us. Now, those people can not represent you while looking like they just fell out of a box car. Education level does not give anyone a license to have a slovenly appearance. And if your face is buried in a cell phone, ipad, whatever just exactly how is that communication thing working for you? Those with limited inter-personal skills will have a very difficult time succeeding as a leader or making the sale if all you know how to do is text and can’t look someone in the eye.

So, educate someone on how to appear in the work place so they can then succeed. We can not continue accepting less and less. So we must continue demanding more and more. That, by the way, is how all successful people treat themselves. Thanks,

You have questions and need help. Where do I go? What will it cost? It’s usually too much! Not now! First time ever a webinar where we can be coached and mentored at a reasonable investment. Specific questions to our businesses answered. Help provided! Monday and Thursday are FREE intro webinars. Go to www.breakthroughsforsuccessinaction.com to register and get more answers. Go to Coach’s website for even more testimonials www.actioncoach.com/edgideon. Find out how others have been achieving success by working with Coach Ed. If the intro webinar doesn’t sound like it will help you then you’ve only invested about an hour.